Starting last weekend, my friend and her family passed around the Stomach Virus From Hell. Everyone was done puking by Wednesday, and by Friday morning her kid was having normal bowel movements, which a nurse friend told her meant he was no longer contagious. She made a point of wiping down the place with bleach cleaner all day Friday.
I hung out with the friend at her place Friday night for a bit, with the kid and the family who had suffered the Stomach Virus From Hell.
Saturday, a bunch of us went to her place to bake cookies. I was in the kitchen baking and running the show. I spent a lot of time washing dishes so my hands were presumably clean.
I touched all the cookies when I put them in bags to take home. Everyone present got some.
My cookies went to my parents’ house, right to their freezer.
A few hours after I got home, it was revealed that I had the Stomach Virus From Hell. Yadda yadda, I’m feeling better now.
So what are the chances that everyone’s cookies, that I touched, are contaminated with this virus? What about the cookies that I froze? Should I send out an alert for everyone to relinquish their cookies to whomever has fought The Disease, or just sit back and wait for reports of violent expulsion?
[ul]
[li]You visited a house where a stomach virus had recently wrecked hell[/li][li]While you were there, you made cookies, including handling them with your bare hands[/li][li]Immediately afterwards, you got that virus yourself[/li][/ul]
Right?
I wouldn’t even handle those cookies, much less eat them. Unless I were sure I’d had that particular virus myself. In that case, I’d probably both eat and enjoy them.
ETA: And freezing the cookies probably won’t do any difference
I’m trying to understand the time line here. How long had your friend and her kids been passing around the Stomach Virus From Hell? And when did you see them? You say you saw them on Friday - was that the Friday after the kid was already feeling better? And when were you ill? That same Friday, a few hours later?
'Cause I can’t think of a stomach virus that has such a short incubation period. You saw them Friday, you got sick Friday? That’s not a virus, that’s food poisoning. But then it’s weird that the kid was sick with the same symptoms earlier in the week. Did you eat any leftovers while you were there? Any soft cheeses or lunchmeat or deli salads that she bought or made earlier in the week?
Or, of course, you could have caught the same or a similar virus somewhere else. Virii do “go through the town” like that. But you would have caught it 7-10 days before you got symptoms, generally speaking. So don’t blame the kid.
In any case, I wouldn’t eat the cookies. Well, if I was you I would, 'cause you know you have what you have. But* I* wouldn’t eat them because I don’t know if I’ve had what you’ve had, even though I may have had a similar Stomach Virus From Hell.
According to the Mayo Clinic, the symptoms of “stomach flu” and “food poisoning” are the same. Considering my friend, her husband, her kid, another friend and the kid’s caretakers all had the same “thing” I did, I am going with virus.
I just remembered that we’d all hung out last Saturday (the 4th).
Hang out with parents & mutual friends (no kid) on the 4th.
Dec 6 kid gets sick
Dec 7 mom gets sick
Dec 8 dad gets sick
Dec 9 kid’s caretakers get sick (they don’t live with the kid)
Dec 10 everyone is feeling better, I hang out with parents and kid.
Dec 11 mutual friend who’d seen us on the 4th gets sick.
Dec 11 I make cookies with parents, kid and mutual friends.
Dec 11, around 11 PM, I have the sickness.
So I either picked it up on the 4th, along with the guy who was sick on the morning of the 11th, or I picked it up on the 10th and was sick by late night on the 11th.
Guess I’ll have to tell everyone to leave the cookies alone.
Strictly speaking it is a foodborne illness rather than food poisoning - the causative agent hitches a ride on some vehicle (in this case the cookie) to make its way into you.
You should know that this virus is extremely infectious, I certainly would not be going visiting elderly relatives or very young children for a while - even though you may have temporary immunity, you still could carry it on clothing etc that you might have contaminated.
I would not be preparing food in that area for anyone who has not already had this virus for a couple of weeks, realisticaly it is just about impossible to completely deconaminate this bug, you need to let is die out on its own - which it will.
Fomites from vomiting can be carried far an wide around the house, and it does not take many organisms to make someone ill.
I have to wonder about you catching it the same day, either you already had it, in which case you will have put it into the cookie mixture, or its something else.If its something else, then your friends woujld also have got it, if they didn’t then I suggest you already had the bug yourself.
Thanks for the input, all. I was going to serve the cookies to my grandparents on Christmas but forget it!
I sent an email to the two cookie-making couples yet to be stricken. Although the one couple (roomie and his gf) are already breathing my air and sharing my commode, and the other were with us on the 4th, so their fate is in the hands of Og as it is.
